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Wednesday, September 17, 2014

The past month I have been the friend no body should ever want. I have been the most difficult person to reach on a phone. I return calls weeks after they come and I secretly hope to get people's voicemails when I do call them back; I just feel like I am "too much" these days. I am always on the go, traveling from one place to the next or trying to figure out one thing after another. I have been needy, needing rides to and from the auto shop and needing friends to help me move an irregularly large dresser at a moments notice. I call my mom to cry about not feeling settled and not having a comforter.

I feel most days like I might just be in over my head; and well, I probably am.

I am frantically trying to stay afloat as I begin my job as the housekeeping supervisor at Crooked Creek, not really knowing exactly what I am doing and hoping that nothing falls apart. I am moving into a house with new roommates, bringing with me no furniture, but a ton of junk (mainly clothes and pictures that have no place to go now). I am doing my best to help run a volunteer Young Life area and a team. I am trying to make my life permanent in Colorado and buy a car for this crazy winter town. When I stop to breath and think for too long, I begin to realize the whole list of things that I need to process through from the last year; then I stop again because I don't want to deal with it all.

There is a lot of trying, a lot of tears, and a lot of hoping for the best.

I keep checking with Jesus, that this is really what He had in mind. I feel frantic and like this all may be too much. I keep thinking that it may be nice to just fast forward to three months from now when things feel a little more together.

But then I remember, God may just be calling me into things that put me in over my head.

In Luke 5, Jesus asks Simon to "Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch." Jesus wants Simon's nets in the deep water. In the water that is over his head, in the water that Simon does not believe will be successful, and in the water that does not make perfect sense. The Lord does the same in our lives; He asks us to let our nets down into deep waters. Waters where our feet may fail without Him, waters where it's dark and difficult to see what is happening; waters where it feels like everything may just crumble to pieces at any moment.

But Simon obeys. He obeys reluctantly, but obeys nonetheless. "Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets" (v. 5). At the word of the Lord he obeyed. He obeyed with his feet, even when it did not make one bit of sense.

And Jesus made sure of the catch. Their nets were almost breaking with fish they were so full.

And I am reminded that maybe, just maybe, I have to keep going out of reluctant obedience. I have to keep trusting that maybe the deep waters will not swallow me alive and that maybe Jesus has a far better plan than I do. And that the Lord will do the catching. He will hold the pieces together.

So today I am thankful for Simon and his reluctant obedience. And I pray that my dragging, kicking, and screaming feet will find the same kind of courage to step into the deep water and trust that Jesus will give me the power to move.

And for all my friends who are in a place feeling like you may just be in over your head, I am with you. Here's to doing hard and holy things together. And for all my friends that I owe a phone call, it is coming; I promise.

Welcome, Friends!

I am just your average twenty-something-year-old in the pursuit of Jesus while living in Colorado. A piece of my heart will always reside in North Carolina, but until I am back there again I am falling in love with the colorful state. I believe in the beauty of a hot cup of coffee early in the morning and in the ability to have an adventure every single day.